A Study on the Use of Interactive Multimedia Courseware in the Learning of Rat Dissection

Abstract

Traditionally, students learned rat dissection through reading printed dissection guides, observing teacher demonstration, and hands-on dissection practice in a Biology laboratory. Teacher demonstration was always not very effective for a large class of students. Hands-on practice consumed a lot of rats before students could master the basic skills of rat dissection. Expenditure in terms of time and resources was high in the learning of rat dissection. To help students learn rat dissection in a more cost-effective manner, the authors designed and developed an interactive multimedia courseware. In addition, the authors had made an innovative use of multimedia technology to perform assessment in a manner which was not possible with traditional media. This article summarized the findings of an evaluation study of the interactive multimedia courseware. The evaluation study looked into students' attitude toward the interactive multimedia courseware, and the problems encountered during the use of the courseware. Lastly, the authors' reflection of the development process and product courseware also constituted part of the evaluation.

The Comprehensive Evaluation of Professional Development Software: A Critique of Methodology

“…However, upon careful review, only six of the studies were found to fit the criteria for review. The 11 studies that did not meet the requirements for inclusion in the extended review were eliminated because they: (a) provided only descriptions of programs (Ludlow, Foshay, & Duff, 1998); (b) were concerned primarily with evaluating groupings (Ivers & Barron, 1998) or presentations that were not self-instructional (e.g., expert systems) (McCoy, 1994), simulations (Strang, Murphy, Kauffman, Badt, & Loper, 1986) or systems change (Goldman & Barron, 1990 ;Kumar & Altschuld, 1999); (c) involved subjects other than pre-service or in-service school-based personnel (Brothen & Wambach, 1999;Ngai & Chan, 1998;Skudrna, 1997); (d) or involved training teachers or faculty to develop multimedia presentations (Fitzgerald, 1994;Fitzgerald, Hardin, & Hollingsead, 1997).…”